The Immigration Reform Act of 2006 provided fewer work visas than were available in previous years for foreign-born college graduates to remain in the United States. The exception is that work visas remained plentiful for college graduates who majored in technical areas such as math, computer programming, and physics.

a. How will this policy likely affect the skill distribution of immigrants to the United States and the age-earnings profile of immigrants in the United States?

b. In the future a demographer uses the 2010 U.S. census to study immigrant wages and concludes that the U.S. policy actually had the unintended consequence of attracting immigrants with lower levels of productivity as shown by a flatter age-earnings profile. Using a graph similar to Figure 8-5, show why the demographer's conclusions are sensitive to cohort effects.